| Appearing
By Charles H. Welch
APPEARING,
Greek epiphaneia.
This word which occurs six times is derived from
phaino to appear, bring to
light, shine.
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2 Thess. 2:8.
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‘The brightness of His coming’. |
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1 Tim. 6:14.
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‘The appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ’. |
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2 Tim. 1:10.
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‘The appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ’. |
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2 Tim. 4:1.
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‘His appearing and His kingdom’. |
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2 Tim. 4:8.
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‘Them also that love His appearing’. |
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Titus 2:13.
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‘The glorious appearing of the great God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ’. |
This subject is part of a greater one, namely the coming of the Lord, and the
relationship of the Hope entertained by the believer, the calling he has
received, and the sphere of his blessing. It must be related with the other key
words parousia
and apocalupsis
which are dealt with under the word
HOPE . All that we will say here is that
whereas parousia
is used to define the hope of the kingdom (Matt. 24:3) and of the Church of the
Acts period (1 Thess. 4:15, 2 Thess. 2:1),
epiphaneia is reserved for the hope of the Church of the Mystery.
The one occurrence in an epistle before Acts 28, is no exception. ‘His coming
or parousia’
is the subject and in this passage ‘brightness’ or
epiphaneia but qualifies
that ‘coming’, whereas after Acts 28
parousia is dropped and
‘the appearing’ is used of the first phase of the Second Coming, a phase that
belongs to things above where Christ sits on the right hand of God, and not to
the second sphere which is associated with the Archangel and the air. These
aspects are fully discussed in the main article
HOPE to which the reader is directed.
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